


all that remains

by doctortwelfth



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Protect these children, angst like woah, non-graphic mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 19:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14219847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctortwelfth/pseuds/doctortwelfth
Summary: Time ticks by slowly, like slow-dripping moonlight and the pulse of blood in his veins. There is a whole eternity here, in this quiet space between one heartbeat and the next.He watches her sleep, and he wonders how long it will take before she thinks herself worthy of loving him.





	all that remains

**Author's Note:**

> a quick character study on how lake silencio affected river and her relationship with the doctor, because the show really skimmed over the fallout and i'm salty about it.

River doesn’t quite remember what happened by Lake Silencio; the Silence have twisted her memory until all that remains is a series of snapshot moments, pressed together and warped with salt (or is it tears?). That, and the lingering feeling of devastating guilt, because she knows the outcome, and she is clever enough to put two and two together to get a single sentence—River Song has killed the Doctor.

 

Never mind that the Doctor is not dead, because he is as good as, if he stays with her. She hadn’t been strong enough to fight whatever the Silence had done to her. What is to say she will be the next time?

 

* * *

 

 River after Utah is angry and scared and constantly looking over her shoulder. He knows she sleeps with a gun by the nightstand. He wakes up to shots in the dead of the night, and the acrid scent of gunpowder always lingers on her clothes after.

 

The Doctor, as a rule, doesn’t allow guns on his TARDIS; River Song has never been one to follow anyone else’s rules.

 

(The gun stays. Eventually, the TARDIS learns to repair the walls of its own accord.)

 

* * *

 

“Let me out!” she screams at him, throwing her weight against the bolted doors of the TARDIS. “Let me out, you don’t know what I am, you don’t know what I could do to you! You need to stay away from me—”

 

The Doctor takes another step towards her. His face looks as if the weight of the universe is on his shoulders, and she wonders when she began to stop thinking of him as youthful. “River,” he whispers. Another step. “River Song. Don’t you remember? You’re the woman who married me.” He’s standing right in front of her now, eyes softening, his face tilted towards hers. “You won’t hurt me. I don’t believe you.”

 

There’s a click. River looks down at her hand, and the butt of a loaded gun stares back at her. Its muzzle is trained on the Doctor, stark and black and unforgiving.

 

She screams, but only because screaming is better than crying. The gun drops to the floor with a dull clank, and she is already running, the Doctor’s cries drowned out by the numbness, the silence, in her mind.

 

* * *

 

The air shudders out of his lungs as River pushes them against the wall of the alleyway and kisses him fiercely. He softens against her, running gentle hands through her hair. There are metal-edged pins buried beneath the mass of curls, and his mouth curls into a smile when River finally pulls away.

 

“Not that I’m complaining,” the Doctor says breathlessly, still clutching onto her shoulders, “But we haven’t checked diaries yet, and I’m assuming—”

 

“Does it matter?” River laughs it off, leaning in close again. They’re not quite kissing, just sharing space and breath and time, and the Doctor thinks that maybe that’s more intimate than anything physical they’ve done in the past. But before he can find the right words for it, River moves against him again, throwing back her head in a clear invitation to bite at her neck. When he tries to soothe the line of bruises with a kiss, she pulls back, instead guiding his fingers pull at her hair in a way that must be painful. She gives him a lascivious wink—“Go on, you know I like it a little rough,”— but he doesn’t buy it. There’s something splintered and empty about it, an edge he doesn’t like.

 

Oh. _Oh_. He remembers this River, from just after Lake Silencio, convinced she was damaged, dangerous. He remembers her in the TARDIS, her tears catching his face as they had kissed, the way she had touched him so gently, like something precious, then refused to be touched back in the same way. He can see her writhing against the sheets as she tries to make him hurt her with every glance, every kiss.

 

That night, he takes her to bed, pins her down and she groans, because she finally thinks she is getting what she deserves. But instead of making it rough and breathless and angry, he drapes his body over hers and worships her.

 

 _You are forgiven_ , he says, into the skin of her collarbone, against the curve at her waist, lips pressed between her legs. _Always and completely_ , he tells her, as her body shudders once, twice.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor greets her with his usual exuberance, snapping the TARDIS doors open and sweeping them both inside despite her protests.

 

“Hello, sweetie!” He swings around the console flipping switches. “Did you know that precisely 24 lightyears away, there’s going to be an enormous supernova over Cereixious? So enormous, in fact, that it’ll be recorded as the biggest in-galaxy explosion for over a millennia, until Flintda-B12 goes up in flames almost exactly eleven thousand years later, and River Song, sweetie, is something the matter?” His feet skate on the glass floor as he slides to a stop right in front of her.

 

River smiles at him, and feels as if she is about to throw up. “Not at all, Doctor. I’m just feeling a little bit tired today. Why don’t you come back and pick up a different me?”

 

The Doctor squints at her. “Aren’t you generous? I’d thought you were the possessive type.”

 

Damn him. Younger than she had expected, but still old enough to be perceptive.

 

“Well, it’s hardly possessive if I’m jealous of my own self, now, is it?”

 

Judging from his expression, he can see straight through the deception. “River, where are you in the timeline?”

 

“Spoilers.” The word is almost a reflex now, short and impersonal and automatic.

 

The Doctor sighs frustratedly. “River,” he begins, and she knows exactly what’s about to come. How many times had she accused him of hiding behind _spoilers_ and _rule one_ and other silly words that were nothing but code for, _I’m too afraid to tell you_? Hell, how many times had she been the one doing the hiding, just like she’s about to now?

 

“I’m sorry, my love,” she says, cutting him off. Those two words mean everything to her, and nothing to him, and someday this will break her, slowly (and of course, _I’m sorry_ cannot change what has already happened, so what is the point?)

 

His expression turns confused, all puppy dog eyes and a pouty mouth. She leans forwards and kisses his cheek, once, gently. She wants to stay, to relearn this version of him who is too young to look at her and see the danger, the dozens of ways she can hurt him. But this is not his battle, nor his burden to bear. Time may already be written, but she can delay the inevitable. She can keep him protected for as long as possible from what will one day happen.

 

She will not let him fall in love with her.

 

This is her penance. And whatever else River Song may be (a liar, a killer, a girl raised by monsters to become one), she is not a woman who runs from punishment.

 

“I have to go. I’m sorry,” she says again.

 

* * *

 

Late at night, the Doctor lies awake with River curled around him, exhausted to the point of sleep. She wouldn’t ever let herself get this close if she were awake. The stillness in the room is thick and comforting, an almost palpable presence draped over the two of them. It is rare, oh so rare, that they ever get a moment like this.

 

Time ticks by slowly, like slow-dripping moonlight and the pulse of blood in his veins. There is a whole eternity here, in this quiet space between one heartbeat and the next.

 

He watches her sleep, and he wonders how long it will take before she thinks herself worthy of loving him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i love these two dorks so much, help?? my tumblr is [@doctortwelfth](http://doctortwelfth.tumblr.com) if any of you want to hmu! i'm currently accepting prompts but i make no guarantees about how it'll take to complete them :0


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